The Big Kitty by Claire Donally Page A

contents stacked on the counter.
    Gordie pointed to the piles. “It’s mostly soup and canned cat food. I’ve read about old folks living on that stuff—you don’t think Mom was, do you?” He shook his head, not waiting for a response. “It’s just that I know she was pretty hard up lately.”
    He led the way into the living room. Clearly, Ada
had
done some housekeeping in the areas she’d used—or maybe that she could see. A small island of orderliness surrounded the overstuffed chair and ottoman with the reading light behind, and the television. The rest was given over to dust, the furniture shaggy with cat hair. Gordie must have been busy in here, too. Half of the couch looked almost normal, a vacuum cleaner leaning against it.
    Gordie gave the machine a kick. “Damn thing clogged up.” He ran his forearm in front of his face, muffling a cough. “It’s even worse upstairs. Except for her room, the cats took over everywhere. You can’t believe the stink up there.”
    Worse than this?
Sunny wondered. Even here, where at least some effort had been made, she couldn’t mistake the sharp, pungent reek of cat pee making itself known through her protective menthol salve. Will didn’t seem fazed by the assorted stinks, but she didn’t even want tothink about where that other odor of decay she smelled might be coming from.
    Sunny suddenly found herself wishing she had a mask, too.
    “I dunno what I’m going to do.” Gordie’s eyes darted around the room, then settled on Sunny again—now an unfriendly gaze. “Your boss from that tour place, Barnstable? He came by—I guess one of his big-shot pals called him with the news. I see him all the time, driving around here in that stupid Land Rover of his like he’s some big-game hunter. ’Cept what he’s hunting for is houses he can snap up for chump change. He’s been oozing around Mom for I don’t know how long, saying he wanted to ‘help.’ Now that she’s dead, he tells me that all of a sudden the place is worth less than half of what he’d been offering her.”
    Sunny raised her hands in a “what can you do?” kind of gesture. Ollie the Barnacle wasn’t one to let finer feelings—or any emotion at all, for that matter—get in the way of potential business.
    “I may have to accept it anyway. Gotta pay off—” Gordie suddenly broke off, glancing over at Will Price as if just realizing the town constable was there. “So, you were going to help Mom look for that ticket,” Gordie said, changing the subject and concentrating on Sunny. “Did she have any ideas about where it might be?”
    Well, here was a development Sunny hadn’t expected. If Gordie was after the ticket, she’d have thought he’d have gotten hold of it before doing anything to his mother.
Unless,
she thought,
this is the setup for a miraculous discovery just before the damned thing would have expired.
    “Sorry, Gordie,” she said. “Your mom had no clue. That’s why she was asking for help.”
    “So what now?” Gordie strode over and flung open the heavy drapes over the front window, revealing grimy glass—and a very startled cat who’d apparently evaded Animal Control by hiding out there.
    Shadow?
Sunny thought. Then her eyes adjusted to the brighter light and she could see the white markings on the gray coat. This cat was smaller than Shadow, too.
    Blinking in the sunlight, Gordie didn’t make out the cat at first. When he did, he recoiled almost like a vampire confronting a cross.
    “I thought they got rid of all of you!” He reached out to roughly grab the cat, who lashed out with his claws. Gordie drew back with a yelp, instinctively putting his wounded hand to his mouth, forgetting about his face mask—and only succeeding in smearing blood on it.
    The cat went for altitude, swarming up the heavy velvet drapes and releasing clouds of dust into the air. He’d gotten just about level with Gordie’s head before the man managed to latch on to the spotted gray